Micronutrients include vitamins and some elements usually in the form of minerals or metal salts; most notably the elements include calcium, phosphorus, potassium, iron, zinc, copper, magnesium, manganese and iodine. Micronutrients are generally consumed in small amounts, i.e., less than 1 gm/day, usually absorbed unchanged, and many essential elements have catalytic functions. While the micronutrients are often present in minute amounts, their bioavailability is essential for survival, growth, health and reproduction. Micronutrients are important for children and other young animals, particularly during their early development years when they are rapidly growing. Furthermore, many new animal breeds require additional amounts of micronutrients as their abilities to grow at a faster rate while consuming less feed has improved. This intensive growth imposes greater metabolic stresses, causing increased susceptibility to vitamin deficiencies. It is well recognized that the needed micronutrients are often not found or not found in sufficient quantities in their food or feed sources, whether these sources are naturally occurring or commercially prepared. Consequently, virtually all industrial food and feed formulations are fortified with vitamins and minerals. The cost to commercial livestock producers for supplying micronutrients to their livestock herds can be staggering.
While human and animals' needs for additional nutrients have been well documented, the availability of the micronutrients has not always met their needs. It is not sufficient to simply increase amounts of the micronutrients in the food or feed sources. This method is ineffective, wasteful and unsafe. Many of the micronutrients are not readily absorbed; the added amounts of vitamins and minerals are simply excreted without being absorbed. Excess loading of vitamins and minerals is unsafe, and in certain circumstances, excess loading can be toxic, causing severe acute and chronic harm and even can be fatal. Thus, there is a need to provide an inexpensive, readily absorbed micronutrient to decrease costs, reduce waste and to help establish a more precise control of the nutritional requirement for humans and animals.
Most commercial processes combine several vitamins and minerals either in a pre-mixed feed supplement or in the feed mix itself. It is known that the vitamin stability can be directly correlated with the vitamin environment, moisture content, temperature, and method of feed processing. Typically pellitized feed products are prepared by mixing a raw feed source with feed supplements such as vitamins, the resulting raw feed mixture is processed with water (or steam) and heated to form a mash, which is forced through a pelletizing die. This process provides nearly optimum conditions (heat and moisture) to oxidatively degrade the included vitamins. Furthermore, the deterioration of vitamins admixed in a feed mix that have been exposed to light and heat has been well documented, especially when inorganic trace minerals also are intimately mixed with the vitamins. For example, it has been determined that multi-vitamin premixes containing inorganic trace minerals lose about 55% of their pyridoxine activity when stored at 98 .degree. F. for about 3 months. Conversely, a premix containing no trace minerals lost only about 24% of its pyridoxine activity under the same conditions. It has been postulated that certain metal salts adversely affect vitamin stability, possibly by promoting a redox reaction that oxidizes the vitamins, destroying their bioactivity. Loss of vitamin activity during storage of the premixes and other prepared nutrients may account for hidden depressions in growth, feed efficiency and disease resistance due to subclinical vitamin deficiencies. Thus, there is a need to provide a micronutrient supplement that is readily bioavailable, storage stable and compatible with a wide variety of different vitamins. The micronutrient supplement must also be cost-efficient to produce and provide a food source for humans and animals that will increase their survivability, growth, health and/or reproductivity.